I have been playing melee since the start of the game. Every update, melee class was the one that got messed around the most.
Nerfs everywhere (BoR nerf, Duelist starting area messed up, Maurauder not being able to mix with duelist pas. skill as effective as before, and so on).
Unwavering stance? Why? Why go waste points on it?
Lot's of things are taken without much in depth look.
BUT,
Since 1.3, Melee is back. And it's back hard.
I have a build i've been working on. Right now, at lvl 77, it's doing better than every other character i ever did. Even MUCH stronger than a couple of 90's i have.
Two items is ALL you need. The rest is irrelevant.
Slitherpinch (makes you forget about watching your life and mana, forget about Blood Magic, which gives you a extra slot in your link and extra skill points in your passives)
Bringer of Rain. (don't scream madness yet. Sure this will be your most expensive piece, but what is expensive. 2 ex get you one. By the time you are required to have a multilink attack, you'll have more than enough currency to get one. Specially since general loot after 1.3 got jacked up.)
Why are these two items the absolute core of the real Melee?
Slitherpinch has dual leech and the dex you'll need to cover your green skill gems. AND it gives you attack speed. All in one item, what more do you want?
Bringer of Rain basically is your 7 Link item. Beats a 6 link. Eventhough some supports are not maxed. 2 ex for a very decent 7 Link beats any 6 link. Unless yeah those mirror worthy 6links; Even bad 6 link armor will cost more than your WHOLE setup.
It's a pure melee piece. Gives life, armor, dmg, those much needed support skills and so on.
So these two are the core, the rest is up to you.
I'd suggest going Axe over Maul. Axe is fast. Both are cheap. Nowadays it takes a couple chaos to buy a Kaoms primacy. A little bit more for a Marohi. But i simply don't like Marohi. Allthough mauls gives you that stun. But, with my build, you don't give a damn about Stun, why? Because you simply kill too quickly. You generate extreme high dmg, since you save skillpoints from NOT taking blood magic both from skill gem and skill tree, you replace it by dmg.
Running an Aura and two herald's is very easy to maintain. Linked to a reduced mana gem and you can run all three. Hatred is a must have, two herald (Ash and Ice) are a sweet addition.
Allthough, you can run two aura's too and a herald. But you'll have to grab some reduced mana reserve nodes from passive. I avoid it. Prefer to run 1 Aura and 2 heralds (also gives me more mana and i can literally not care about it anymore. two aura's with herald, even with the nodes is hard to handle). You can go full dmg instead of running 2 aura's with the nodes.
So, Slitherpinch and BoR. Hatred, 2x Herald (Ash+Ice) and a weapon. Go axe, extremely cheap Kaoms.
The rest? Well take care of your resistances and you'll do just fine.
I'll make a detailed guide on my version of the Marauder, but later.
Basically it's this :
BoR : Infernal Blow - Multistrike - Added Fire Damage - Melee Splash
Weapon : Cast on Dmg taken (Lvl 1, keep other gems under lvl 31 req.) + EnFeeble + Decoy Totem + Molten Shell
Gloves : Cast on Dmg taken (Max Lvl) + Molten Shell(Max) + Temp Chains or Enfeeble (Max) + Decoy Totem (max)
Boots : Cast when stunned (max) + Immortal call (max) + increased duration (max) + Molten Shell (max) (This pretty much makes you immortal when you get stunned. It fails sometimes, but the % is mainly in your advantage)
And eventhough it fails, moderate mobs can't kill you during stun anyways. And high hitters will be countered by your TWO cast when dmg taken setups. Auto decoy and curse with your armor jacked up by molten shell, while keeping your endurance charges since cast when stunned failed to cast
Get it? You run two cwdt, one for moderate mobs one for high end mobs. Run a link that makes you immortal if it casts, if it doesn't you keep your endurance charges (high dmg reduction) combined with your decoys and curses :-)
win win.
All the rest is just maintaining your resists. You can pick up the dex/int nodes on passives. They are places on your way to pick up hp/dmg nodes anyways.
Your first priority is hp. The more the better. Second is going full dmg. Don't care too much about attack speed, but it's very nice to have. Since you'll attack fast enough with multistrike and faster attack to maintain a decent enough leech to keep your hp and mana up all the time.
Good things you can add are things like warlords or whatever. But since we basically auto-cast debuffs, there is absolutely no need to debuff manually, since they get replaced quickly anyways.
A good addition, is a doryani's belt, a physical one. But you can also just pick up a rare rustic sash with some resists and even life and stuff.
In no time, you'll build up such a high dps (25k+ is very reachable at even lvl 70 and very easy to sustain due to high leech fast attacks and running aura with heralds).
Eventhough you have THREE auto-cast setups, you'll barely have to depend on them, since you kill too fast. You literally clean your whole screen in a matter of seconds. Two three tops.
Sure you'll have difficulties with reflext maps, specially elemental since you dish out HUGE ele aside your melee. a melee reflect, no problem, ele reflect can hurt you. Avoid them if you don't know how to handle them, or just rely on flasks.
Flask go too deep, there are LOTS of different flask that can save your life no matter what. Bring me any map combo, i'll flask the sh*t out of it. Everything is counterable in this game.
I'll make a guide soon.
Melee is in. 100%. And it's better than it ever was.
This post was edited by MorphX on Feb 4 2015 03:01pm